Elon Musk has amended Twitter’s proposed verification plans from a $19.99 charge per month to an $8 monthly fee along with several premiere features for blue-check users, the new owner said Tuesday.
“Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit,”The Tesla CEO Tweet. “Power to the people! Blue for $8/month,”He said, “The price will be.” “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.”
This change comes just a day after the news of the plan circulated. It received significant backlash from verified Twitter users across media, entertainment, and literary legend Stephen King who tweeted. “$20 a month to keep my blue check? F– that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.”
Musk also spoke out about the added benefits of being verified. “priorities in replies, mentions and search” — which the Twitter boss says is “essential to defeat spam/scam” — the ability to post long video and audio and half as many ads as non-verified users.
As it stands, non-verified and verified users can post videos and voice tweets up to 2 minutes and 20 seconds, with additional audio from the voice tweet being automatically attached to the original tweet in a thread. Musk didn’t provide any details about the new length limit for verified users, or whether the acceptable audio and video lengths will be adjusted for non-verified users.
Blue-check users also get a perk: “paywall bypass”Musk stated that publications would have access to the Internet, but not for publication. “publishers willing to work with us.”
Musk seems to have accepted the widespread criticism of his takeover. Musk even changed the Twitter bio. “Twitter Complaint Hotline Operator”Effective Tuesday morning
Platformer’s Casey Newton also reportedTwitter announced Tuesday afternoon that it is considering a $99 annual Twitter Blue plan, in addition to its previous monthly subscription. He also said that users will be able to edit their tweets, regardless of their verification status. This marks a major change to an option that was previously only available to premium subscribers.
This story has been updated in order to include the annual Twitter Blue membership option.
